I'm Just Sayin'
by Twilight Dusk
Summary: 100, 150, and 200 word drabbles inspired by quotes from the show, not organized chronologically or serially.
1. The Jailhouse Job 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own these characters or anything else that is the intellectual property of someone else. The quotes in italics are direct quotes from the show; I don't own them either.**

_"Are we okay, Eliot?"_

Eliot looks at Nate, sitting certain, if not comfortable, in his arrogance, expecting the reaction Eliot almost gives into. Nate expects him to put it away, to focus on the job, to let it slide the way he has every other time Nate had teetered over the line. Or maybe Nate's just expecting him to understand, because it ain't like he's the only one in the room with a martyr complex. But this time-

"No man, we ain't; what in the hell made ya think ya had to do this?!"

"She hung up."

Wait, what? _She hung up_. That meant-

_From The Jailhouse Job_


	2. The Second David Job 1

**Disclaimer: Ditto.**

_"I'm gon' count ta three."_

Quinn was the best actor he'd ever seen. Forget Sophie. The grifter was good, but body language that deceptive? He could identify CIA by stance, Russians by their footprints, but looking at Quinn? He hadn't even seen _hitter_ and Quinn got that first hit completely free.

He only needed one hit for the concussion. The concussion gave him the kicks. Maybe he could say it was all the concussion slowing him down, but you didn't con yourself anymore than you conned your crew. The second got people killed; the first got _you_ killed. He'd slowed down a little, sure, but then he'd blocked a damn feint! And taken two to the chest an' another in the face. Son of a bitch was fast too; kidney caught that loud and clear. Tackle was another surprise, but at that point, he couldn'a stopped it anyway.

It was the hit that Eliot did see comin' that won the fight. Quinn got cocky, angry, tired, _sloppy_. That knee wasn't telegraphed; it was fuckin' announced. Somebody gave it a damn marquee, put it up in lights.

At least he'd only needed one hit too. The knockout was just icing. _But damn did it taste sweet._

_From The Second David Job_


	3. The Second David Job 2

**Disclaimer: Similarly**

_"Whoever's hiding in that sarcophagus."_

Sterling knows how Nate thinks. He knows how Sophie thinks. By now, he knows something about how Hardison thinks. He isn't entirely convinced that Spencer does think. No one knows how Parker thinks, but that doesn't matter; she's just one of Nate's pawns. _He knows how Nate thinks._

It's how he caught Parker, hiding in the armored car. It's what he's famous for, spending five- it was three, but he's hardly going to diminish his own legend by admitting it- days in a boot. It was even Nate's- rather weak- punchline back at the office. It's how he'll catch them now, Nate's need to feel superior, to taunt his enemy has led the man to rip a page from Sterling's playbook. It's clever, but plagiarism; can't beat the real thing. _Nice try, Nate._

The mummy hits the ground, and it starts to occur to him..._Nate knows how he thinks too._

_From The Second David Job_


	4. The Tap Out Job 1

**Disclaimer: Likewise.**

_"About knowing you're never gonna be the victim."_

It's sweet almost, the way she doesn't get it at all.

It's amusing too, the way she thinks losing the fight is the problem, and flattering, because the way she's talking, it's like she thinks he hasn't lost or for that matter, thrown a fight before. He never likes doing it; fixing a fight feels wrong to him the way so much else doesn't. Then again, the world's greatest thief thinks illegal downloading is wrong, so maybe it ain't so strange that the retrieval specialist hates cheating in sports.

The fight ain't the problem, though, and he doesn't think he can explain it. He'll do his best with words, but Sophie doesn't speak his language, even if she thinks she's trying. Nobody on the team does really. Hardison especially doesn't have a damn clue. Though Nate at least knows what language it is and Parker knows what it sounds like, he's the only one who speaks it. Which is how it should be, a part of him thinks, and that's part of his job now, makin' sure they never do come to understand it.

The problem ain't being the victim. It's what you can become when you vow _Never again_.

_From The Tap Out Job_

A/N: I knew where I was going with this, but I don't think I got there. Gah.


	5. The Nigerian Job 1

**Disclaimer: Same as always**

_"There's something wrong with you." _

He says it just the way he says it when he looks in the mirror, 'cause it ain't been all that long since the money might well have mattered more to him too. Then, when he told himself the lives he took were no more valuable than the money he was given to end them. Then, when the money was worth the light in their eyes and the blood on his hands and the scars on his soul. And yet somehow then was better than before, when he killed on nothing but an order and belief in a dream, trust in a dream and in the men preaching it. Until he learned that men can't be trusted, and then learned it again, and learned he couldn't be trusted into the bargain.

He learned all that, then and before, so what the hell is he doing here now, putting his trust in anybody, even an honest man like Nate Ford? Trusting a naive geek and a girl thief as crazy and dangerous as he ever was, both of whom had pointed guns at him already today? But he's here, and he means it when he asks, _"You got a better idea?"_

_From The Nigerian Job_


	6. The Nigerian Job 2

_"You don't like hospitals."_

He never has. It isn't just about Sam. It isn't just about his mother. It's about unobservant nurses and the occasional too observant doctor. It's about loneliness and boredom and eerie almost-quiet.

And it's about Sam. It's about horrible memories replaced by one memory. One singular soul-crushing memory. The same relentless, terrible memory over and over and over.

The handcuffs are frankly a relief. Something new, something _else_ to think about. But when the escape is that easy and it feels that good, it's suddenly his father he's seeing, instead of his son, and he isn't sure that's any better.

_From The Nigerian Job_


	7. The Two Live Crew Job 1

_"Well, word is on the street that you run the nastiest crew this side of the Atlantic."_

The visceral reaction is a flash of pride, before the guilt kicks in and he remembers that this isn't supposed to feel good. Before he remembers that he's not a thief, Jimmy Ford's son can't help but feel smug. It's the conflict that reduces him to a surprised, _"What?" _Then he remembers, and only Sophie's quick words prevent him from spouting out the spiel, the justification, the way he reconciles having not only a crew, but this crew, the best, nastiest crew.

But the darkest, most secret part of him can only think, _Either side, and everyone will know it._

_From The Two Live Crew Job_


	8. The Wedding Job 1

_"I liberated Croatia."_

He'd joined up right out of high school. Aimee had been happy enough with his career choice, proud of him when she didn't know what it meant. Then his first month in boot camp had shown the brass something he'd sorta always known, and got him sent straight into the first available war. He got his first bullet on her birthday, spent Thanksgiving in a fire fight, Christmas behind enemy lines, New Year's watching buddies die, and _that_ was _not_ how he wanted to spend his Valentine's. The first time he escaped, his ring and the news of Mrs. Martin's funeral awaited him.

By the time he made it Stateside, pride was the last word she'd use. Aimee wasn't one to forget and maybe she pretended to accept and took back the ring, but the nightmares kept them both awake. It was getting to him, changing him, and he couldn't, wouldn't tell her why.

He'd thought Hardison was askin' what he did to make her leave. What he'd done was his duty, and she couldn't put her happiness on hold forever. Seven years, she waited, until he takes her at her word when the voice mail says, "Don't come home."

_From The Wedding Job_

A/N: I'm following Serial order, not Broadcast. This is part of my head-canon attempt to make the dates match up.


	9. The Reunion Job 1

_"Anybody wonder if Eliot's alive?"_

They didn't really wonder, he knew, but it wasn't like they intended to exclude. At least one of them was convinced he was invincible, and Parker poked his bruises the same way she'd poked Sophie after Katharine's funeral- like she wasn't quite certain what was real. Nate _definitely_ knew he wasn't; there were _reasons_ Eliot'd known the honest man didn't like hospitals, but Nate also trusted him to do his job, which the mastermind had expressly told the hitter included _saying_ if he was badly hurt. And he wasn't. Nothing that couldn't wait until the end of the song anyway.

_From The Reunion Job_

A/N: Lindsey McDonald is a pernicious, brain-jacking sunnavabitch.


	10. The Queen's Gambit Job 1

_"You'd be surprised what people can do when they're properly motivated."_

Sterling is invested in the caricature he's built of Eliot. It was dazzlingly clear in his little blow-up in Kiev. _'A punch-up artist'_, he'd called the retrieval specialist. As if he'd never read the file Nate had compiled, the investigator's notes warning about Eliot's tactical skills as well as his physical abilities. It had been in the way he'd tried futilely to fight his way free of Eliot's hold, rather than appealing to Nate or leading off with the news about Maggie. It was in the way he stood where he thought he was out of Eliot's reach when he could, and the way he'd immediately assumed the Mayor was in the trunk. Eliot thinks Sterling is determined to think of him as dumb muscle, because Sterling is terrified of him.

And he's right. The power games, the provocation, it's all just whistling past the graveyard, denigrating what one fears to make it a bit less scary, which is why Eliot takes and drinks that coffee. Sterling is a man ruled by self-interest, and Eliot has worked with weasels like that- Chapman- before, all mouth and no guts. But Eliot didn't know about Olivia, and for Sterling, she's properly motivating.

_From The Queen's Gambit Job._


	11. The Big Bang Job 1

**Disclaimer: Noticed I hadn't done this in a while, but you did read the first chapter right?**

_"But you can't. You're not that man anymore."_

But he was and he could. He hadn't stopped killing when he'd put down his guns, or even when he'd joined this crazy team; he had moved dealing death to Plan Double-z, but if it came to some asshole's life against the client or his team? Maybe if they didn't need him he'd put principles ahead of survival, but they did need him, which made the possibility of being him and doing that part of his job. And Atherton had earned it before.

He trusted Nate, who knew better ways to make it hurt, but if he had to be...

_From The Big Bang Job_


	12. The Big Bang Job 2

**Disclaimer: Do I really have to say this every chapter?**

_"Atherton was a general in the black ops."_

A general. Not his general. A general. It sounded so impersonal like that. Like Atherton wasn't the one who'd sent him into mountains, deserts and jungles. _Into cities_. Who'd, at least twice that Eliot knew of, sent bright-eyed, naive, as bright-eyed and naive as black ops teams got anyway, kids to do Moreau's dirty work under the guise of serving their country. Who'd used their, _his_ patriotism for Atherton's own profit and who'd hung the teams he'd sent to be stained with blood out to dry, to _die_ to cover the greedy asshole's tracks. Moreau's protection had kept him alive.

_From The Big Bang Job_

A/N: This one's pure head-canon. I usually try not to go for anything that doesn't have _some_ basis in the show, but I couldn't resist.


	13. The Zanzibar Marketplace Job 1

**Disclaimer: Wait, you think I suddenly managed to acquire the rights to this stuff between this chapter and the last. Wow, I wish I lived in your world.**

_"Drinking's not a problem; it's a symptom."_

It is a symptom, but not the symptom Eliot- and Sophie- thinks. He's not afraid of his inability to control the world. He's not afraid of losing; he's been there already. That's not what terrifies him. What wakes him up at night is how much of it he _can_ control. He should not be able to do this.

He should not be able to make life dance to his tune. He should not be able to manipulate people like marionettes. He used to be able to bury these thoughts when he was the honest man he still desperately claims to be. He used to be able to suppress the instinct to look for weaknesses or at least tell himself that it was just part of his job. He used to be able to ignore the levers and the buttons. He used to be able to consign the thoughts of the damage he could cause with a crew like this, with a hacker like Hardison, with a thief like Parker, with a retrieval specialist- no, hitter- like Eliot, _with Sophie_.

But now it's no longer nightmares, he knows exactly what he's capable of, and that's exactly why he needs the whiskey.

_From The Zanzibar Marketplace Job_


	14. The Queen's Gambit Job 2

**Disclaimer: If I won the lottery, I still wouldn't be able to afford Leverage; though I might buy a few a props.**

_"Guy who can do that doesn't give up his queen for free."_

Not for free, not for money. Love's the only reason he'd give her up, the only reason he ever gave her up, and even then only because it's what she asked of him. He is helpless to fight; whatever she asks of him, wants from him, she gets. Except sobriety, because he tried that and she left anyway. And it's not just her. He's always playing, yes, but he doesn't make trades, not when it's their lives or freedom on the line. He'll sacrifice the king instead, and that's where the real game is, because they think that way too.

_From The Queen's Gambit Job_


	15. The Homecoming Job 1

**Disclaimer: If I owned Psych, there would have been the Leverage crossover.**

_"I actually hurt people."_

There's a trail of paranoia in their wake. A trail of lost jobs and lost possessions, of tattered trust and shattered security. Of faith gone fallow when the system failed. Of hopeful hearts hardening with stony cynicism, of sweet smiles embittered by loss and lies. Of men who thought they'd fallen in love, only to have fallen for her facade. Of secret keepers shadowed by secrets they'd thought safe, whose sole fault was being interesting when he was bored. Of ruthless honesty. Of explosions. Eliot wasn't the only one who hurt people; he was the only one who admitted it.

_From The Homecoming_ _Job_.


	16. The Jailhouse Job 2

**Disclaimer: If I owned Leverage, there would have been more than one episode with Christian singing.**

_"W__hat kind of world would it be if everybody that committed a silly little crime went to prison?"_

A world without him, to begin with. If everybody, if _they_ had gone to prison- and stayed there, an important addendum when talking about Parker and Eliot- if they'd paid for the 'silly little' felonies, burglaries, extortions, frauds, larcenies, robberies, thefts, assaults, batteries, et cetera, he'd be dead, having finally drunk himself to death or given in to the guilt and blown his brains out. It would be a more ordered world, lawful, but a colder world. A world a little less vibrant, colorful, clear. A sadder world, without his thieves. But that's not something he can admit to her.

_From The Jailhouse Job_


	17. The Zanzibar Marketplace Job 2

**Disclaimer: Seriously?**

_"That's kind of the point."_

It's the whole point. His accent, his height, his glasses, his hair, his clothes, whatever he can use to be underestimated. It's the misconceptions that have kept him alive this long. Well, misconceptions and a gift for swift violence when it's time for the facade to fall away.

It's Eliot's greatest skill. Everyone underestimates him, even Nate. He knows what they can all do, but Eliot can still surprise him. Luckily for them all, if Nate's a little surprised by what Eliot can do, everyone else is completely clueless. It means the mastermind can rely on Eliot to be wherever he needs to be to keep the team safe, because the marks and the law don't see the man they need to stop.

They might see the hitter or the retrieval specialist. They might see Eliot or Cmdr. Spencer, but no one's seen _him _in years. Not even the team.

_From The Zanzibar Marketplace Job_

A/N: POV on this one goes Eliot, Nate, Eliot. Last couple felt a little forced, hope this one's more in the game.


	18. The Future Job 1

**Disclaimer: I also don't own the starfish story. I think the original's Loren Eisley.**

_"Then why do it?"_

She's right, in a way. It will happen again. These people, most of them wanted to be fooled. To some extent, it's the same with marks everywhere. They can only be deceived as much as they like the deception, and the lies that people tell themselves are the sweetest lies of all. All the team does, it's just throwing starfish, little lights that don't really make a dent in a dark world. They can't win. Hell, in some ways they're part of it. They can't make a difference in this world.

But they sure made a difference to that one.

_From The Future Job_


	19. The Maltese Falcon Job 1

**Disclaimer: If I owned Leverage, there would be a con dependent on Parker doing Parkour.**

_"That is silly."_

What's silly is that Tara now seems to think she wouldn't. She'd have done it in a heartbeat, if Tara had been guilty. She might have forgiven Sophie, eventually, although getting her caught ranked very high on Parker's personal list of offenses, but Sophie had become family somewhen since they started this gig. And Tara wasn't. Parker liked not-Sophie well enough, but she didn't carry explosives just for doors. Nate worried about Parker losing focus, not about her getting caught or hurt. Eliot would rescue Hardison first, because she could save herself. And she would. She had a family now.

_From The Maltese Falcon Job_

A/N: In that Parkour con, The Real World is on Parker's running playlist.


	20. The Jailhouse Job 3

**Disclaimer: I'll take another episode with Quinn, please. Oh that's right. I don't own Leverage.**

_"She's blackmailing us?"_

No, she's blackmailing him. She's threatening you. It makes him burn, an icy burn the whiskey can't compete with. He just got through this with Sterling, but this woman knows how he'll react. Threatening him gets you nowhere, he will never again hesitate to risk himself to save his family, but threatening them; it's the threat that works. She hadn't been explicit; she didn't need to be. He sees it in his nightmares, once his brain decides he's lost Sam enough that night. He used to fear death, but after Sam, and now with them, survival is so much worse.

_From The Jailhouse Job_


	21. The Gone-Fishin Job 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Juárez.**

_"We just spent 10 days in Ju__á__rez."_

Ten days in a city that made him long for Croatia. Never mind that the con was going down in one of the safest neighborhoods in the city or that the injuries he'd sustained were more from Parker and her damn piñatas than from the little fighting he'd had to do. Actual violence was pretty calming; it was waiting for the shoe to drop, the possibility of violence, being so damn on edge, that killed him.

He'd known he'd need a day or so of fishing and cooking his catch to settle himself back to Boston-standard paranoia, up a notch from last year courtesy of that blackmailing bitch, instead of the coiled rattler state he'd been in since they'd crossed over from El Paso.

And then on the drive home, he'd caught himself assessing Parker like a threat, estimating the time it would take to lay Nate out, and sizing up where in that outfit Sophie might be hiding a gun. He still wasn't where he should be, but he'd had to force himself to adjust before his instincts had him going too far.

They second the wannabe soldiers surrounded them, he knew he'd gone too far the other way.


	22. The Gone-Fishin' Job 2

**Disclaimer: I don't own Tony Curtis or Sidney Poitier**

_"Who got punched first, Eliot?"_

He knows it isn't really a race thing. He knows it is the same thing that's making Eliot look like _he'd_ like to do the punching now. The same thing that nearly got his ass shot trying to play grifter with the Russians. When his brain can't handle it, when the fear and the nerves get to him, his mouth keeps moving, babbling without bothering to consult the brain that should be running his body. It's a stall tactic, trying to buy the brain time, and he knows he can't stop it even if he could think enough to try.

It ain't a race thing. It's because even idiots like these can hear the fear when you run your mouth like that, and Hardison has no idea when it's time to shut his damn mouth. But the hacker's brain is usually working behind the babble, and, it makes a fine distraction. Fifty yards later, he's half-considering shutting Hardison up himself. Talking's wasting breath they're gonna need. But when the hacker's next spiel is arguing to stay, to stop the bomb, taking that soldier's risk, Eliot decides he'll stand the chatter, because Hardison just crossed the line from teammate to brother.

_From The Gone-Fishin' Job_

A/N: Two for one deal. Same quote, two drabbles, two POVs. And now I just need Sophie to complete the set.


	23. The King George Job 1

**Disclaimer: I don't own Scotland.**

_"You clean it up, so that all the pretty people can show it off in their pretty bloody houses."_

Just as she'd cleaned herself up, that first run, when she'd aimed to be the artwork shown. When she'd spent seven years scraping and scrubbing off Lottie's rough edges to polish Lady Charlotte Prentiss, or rather six of cleansing and one year-long downward spiral of foolish love and inevitable disaster. London was the last place she wanted to be Charlotte again, but she couldn't leave that little girl to take the fall for Keller. Emily's barbs, William's name, her grief, she could suffer the memories. And Sophie owed the girl. She wasn't entirely certain she'd have suffered them for Nate.

_From The King George Job_

A/N: Sophie's the hardest to write these introspective drabbles for; she actually _talks_. Her thoughts are in the script.


End file.
